| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: of "heart disease," and his eyes fell on the revolver that lay near
the dead man's hand on the desk. Then he shook his head, and then
he started suddenly. Horn noticed the movement; it was in the moment
when the physician raised up the sunken figure that had fallen half
over the desk.
"He was killed by a bullet," said Muller.
"Yes, that was it," replied the doctor. With the raising of the
body the dead man's waistcoat fell back into its usual position,
and they could see a little round hole in his shirt. The doctor
opened the shirt bosom and pointed to a little wound in the
Professor's left breast. There were scarcely three or four drops
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: Obeying the flap of his rope, the little red bull slowly
came around on a tack, and the cart crawled away in the
nimbus arising from its wheels.
Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup smoked his elder-
stem pipe. Late in the afternoon he got his weekly paper,
and read it until the twilight dimmed its lines. Then
he lit the tallow candle on his table, and read until the
moon rose, marking the time for supper. He lived in
the double log cabin on the slope near the girdled poplar.
Going home to supper he crossed a little branch darkened
by a laurel thicket. The dark figure of a man stepped
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: He only knew that he had first borrowed two hundred dollars,
then another hundred, then fifty--that each time a bonus was added
to the principal, and the debt grew faster than any crop he planted.
Now everything was plastered with mortgages.
Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself lifting timbers
for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a gush of blood
from the lungs that his fellow workmen thought he would die on the spot.
They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and there he lay,
very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof
of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away.
The Russians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them and liked
My Antonia |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: despair. "Farewell. In other days I protected you," he added, in a
reproachful tone. "Without me, your mother would never have reached
Marseille," he said, addressing himself to Bonaparte, who was silent
and thoughtful, his elbow resting on a mantel-shelf.
"As a matter of duty, Piombo," said Napoleon at last, "I cannot take
you under my wing. I have become the leader of a great nation; I
command the Republic; I am bound to execute the laws."
"Ha! ha!" said Bartolomeo, scornfully.
"But I can shut my eyes," continued Bonaparte. "The tradition of the
Vendetta will long prevent the reign of law in Corsica," he added, as
if speaking to himself. "But it MUST be destroyed, at any cost."
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